Large Firm

Hogan Lovells announces plan to open offices in Australia

Paul Hogan is about to get some company in the land down under. Hogan Lovells announced its entry into the Australian legal market on Tuesday. In a press release, the firm stated that it had recruited two partners from Australian firm Allens to open offices in Perth and Sydney. The…

Apr 2, 2015 10:18 AM CDT

Lawyer goes back to BigLaw, via a merger, after forming his own firm

Five years after leaving a BigLaw partnership to form his own firm, Gregory Evans is back. McGuireWoods has announced that it is acquiring Los Angeles litigation boutique Integer Law, reports the Am Law Daily. The move gives McGuireWoods, which already has a Century City office in Los Angeles, a downtown…

Apr 2, 2015 7:40 AM CDT

April 1 joke banning late-night and vacation emails backfires on Weil Gotshal

An April Fools’ Day email to Weil Gotshal & Manges employees saying that electronic messages would not be transmitted late at night or to vacationing workers, was intended as a joke. But this year the firm’s traditional April 1 effort backfired. Hard-working associate attorneys didn’t find the message about the…

Apr 1, 2015 3:55 PM CDT

Why are so many former Dewey partners moving on to new firms?

About a third of the partners at collapsed law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf have left the new firms that hired them, according to a new analysis. Bloomberg’s Big Law Business says it found that about a third of Dewey’s 300 partners have leaped from their new firms to other law…

Mar 31, 2015 1:31 PM CDT

Patent team exits Womble Carlyle to open new Silicon Valley office for Downey Brand

A five-lawyer patent team headed by Michael Ferrazano has exited Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice to open a new Silicon Valley office for Sacramento-based Downey Brand. The group also includes five patent agents, a paralegal and 11 staff members, and is expected to bring a substantial book of business to…

Mar 31, 2015 11:30 AM CDT

Two Duane Morris partners resign after malpractice suit alleges their own LLC collected fees

Updated: Duane Morris corporate practice chief George Nemphos and corporate partner Jay Cohen have resigned after a malpractice suit claimed they told a client to pay fees to a company they created. The $10 million suit by Angela Singleton, the inventor of a high heel shoe insert, alleges Nemphos and…

Mar 31, 2015 8:14 AM CDT

Slater & Gordon makes $947M offer to acquire major UK personal injury law firm

Slater & Gordon, the world’s first publicly traded law firm, is poised to acquire most of a major United Kingdom competitor. Assuming that Quindell partners agree in an April 17 vote with the recommendation of their board of directors, Slater & Gordon is to pay 637 million pounds (about $947…

Mar 30, 2015 9:05 AM CDT

Which BigLaw firms were targets in cyberattacks? Internal Citigroup report lists two of them

Large law firms are at “high risk for cyberintrusions,” according to an internal report by Citigroup’s cyberintelligence center that called for public disclosure of security breaches by law firms. The report, obtained by the New York Times DealBook blog, said law firms would “continue to be targeted by malicious actors…

Mar 27, 2015 7:13 AM CDT

Federal judge scolds BigLaw lawyers for ‘behemoth pleadings’ and ‘prolixity’

A federal judge in Manhattan is ordering lawyers in a United Parcel Service lawsuit to file new pleadings that are short and plain, in keeping with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In a March 24 order (PDF), U.S. District Judge William Pauley III labeled the pleadings…

Mar 26, 2015 8:48 AM CDT

3 IP partners leap from Faegre to WilmerHale; more growth expected in Denver office

Three intellectual property partners have exited the Denver office of Faegre Baker Daniels to establish an IP practice group at the Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr office there. The trio includes Natalie Hanlon Leh, who served as the administrative partner in her now-former firm’s IP practice group in Colorado,…

Mar 25, 2015 2:10 PM CDT

Former Willkie partner accused of defrauding her firm faces scrutiny in credit-card cases

A former antitrust partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher accused of defrauding her law firm is facing new scrutiny because of her email communications with opposing counsel in an antitrust suit. The former partner, Keila Ravelo, was accused in December of bilking two law firms and a client out of…

Mar 25, 2015 2:08 PM CDT

BigLaw partner won’t be sanctioned for jargon-filled SCOTUS petition; others are forewarned

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a warning on Monday when it revealed it won’t sanction a Foley & Lardner partner who submitted a jargon-filled cert petition after his client refused to relinquish control of the writing. The court’s orders list (PDF) said the order to show cause against lawyer Howard…

Mar 23, 2015 10:46 AM CDT

Judge sees ‘self-congratulatory blather’ in BigLaw brief; paralegals blamed for error

A Florida bankruptcy judge overseeing a fight between investors in a shuttered fashion mall made no secret of his dissatisfaction with a Duane Morris pleading during a sanctions hearing on Friday. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Olson said the law firm appeared to be throwing a paralegal “under the bus” when…

Mar 23, 2015 8:15 AM CDT

Oops! Mislabeled docket notices don’t excuse blown deadline in $40M appeal, appeals court says

AT&T’s $40 million appeal of a patent judgment is doomed because its lawyers relied on mislabeled docket notices and missed a deadline, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appeals court said lawyers for AT&T should have checked the online docket rather than relying on…

Mar 23, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Five-partner health-care group exits Nelson Mulllins to open new office in Raleigh for Chicago firm

A five-partner group of health care practitioners headed by Barry Alexander has exited Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough for Polsinelli. Three, including Alexander, will open a new office for Polsinelli in Raleigh, North Carolina. The other two will work out of Atlanta for Polsinelli, which has nearly 750 attorneys in…

Mar 20, 2015 4:10 PM CDT